Discover The Word

Monday, April 28, 2008, Part 1

IDEA: To apply the Scriptures well means that we have to have an attitude of obedience and trust.

PURPOSE: To help the listener understand that your attitude has a lot to do with your application.

Do you read travel folders?

Do you intend to go to the places you read about?

It’s possible to read the Bible the way you read a travel folder.

If you read a travel folder because you’re planning to take a trip, do you read it differently from times when you read the folder only out of curiosity? The attitude you bring to reading the folder influences how you read it.

I. We have been looking at Bible study and have said that there are three steps.

What are they?

What exactly do we do?

II. When we come to application, we have to come with the right attitude.

It’s possible to read the Bible as we read a travel folder, or as we put together a jigsaw puzzle. There can be a great deal of satisfaction from satisfying our curiosity about the Bible’s meaning, context, etc.

But we must come with an attitude of trusting in what God promises.

1 Peter 1:3-7: If we ask what is the promise of God here, it is that because Christ is risen, we have an inheritance that can never perish and we can live in hope. But Peter knows we also face trials. If you lose the big picture, the little picture keeps fouling you up. First Peter talks about all kinds of little pictures, but we must keep the big picture in mind. We cannot let the little pictures destroy the big pictures. We look at life through the lens of the promise.

Not only do we trust; we also come with an attitude of obeying what God commands.

1 Peter 3:1-2: What would be the instinctive response of a wife, married to a non-Christian, when she reads this?

When you read 2:17, your first reaction might be “What of this government” rather than the attitude of obedience to the command.